


13 Weeks

by Brumeier



Series: From the Ashes [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Kid Fic, M/M, Miscarriage, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 00:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9467201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: LJ Comment Fic for Angst prompt:any, any, losing a baby.In which the author completely bums herself out by filling this prompt, and inflicts even more angst on John and Rodney from her ficRunning On Empty. (Shouldn't need to read the original story to understand this.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning:** Tissues. Seriously.

Rodney didn’t know how long he’d been sitting in the dark. It felt like hours. He had a pair of impossibly tiny baby booties in his hands, rubbing his thumbs across the soft yarn.

“Rodney?” John called when he came through the back door. 

There was the double _thump_ of him kicking off his shoes, and the solid _thunk_ that was his keys hitting the kitchen counter. Each familiar sound filled Rodney with dread, because he knew John would eventually find him and then he’d have to break the news.

He’d wanted to call John right away, needed him to be there, but he’d known John was already on the road. It hadn’t been that long ago that Rodney thought John had been killed in a car wreck, and it made him nervous enough to have his husband back behind the wheel without worrying about him driving recklessly to get home quicker.

So Rodney had waited, his stomach churning as he thought about what to say and how John would react, all his focus on John so he didn’t have to think too hard about anything else.

“Rodney, you here?”

The hall light came on, chasing back some of the shadows from the nursery. Rodney’s heart started pounding painfully hard in his chest, and he realized he was rocking back and forth on the glider rocker ottoman.

Belatedly he remembered that they were supposed to go out for dinner. Lily was sleeping over at Jeannie’s so they had the whole night to themselves. Rodney wondered if having Lily home would make things better or worse.

God. They’d have to tell her, too. She was only four. It wasn’t fair that she’d have to process something like that.

“Hey. What’s up?” John reached for the light switch but Rodney put his hand up.

“Leave it.”

“Okay,” John said, and he sounded wary. “What’s going on?”

He sat across from Rodney on the rocker, stretching out his bad leg with a little sigh. Anger wanted to bubble up again – Hadn’t they been through more than their fair share of shit already? How many losses was he going to have to bear? – but Rodney forced it down. He didn’t want to snap at John, didn’t want to make things more difficult than they had to be.

Best to just get it over with, like ripping off a bandaid.

“Gillian called.”

“Is everything okay?”

There was a lump in Rodney’s throat so big he could barely swallow past it. Once he said the words out loud it would be real. No take-backs. No do-overs. “Amy’s in the hospital. She…she lost the baby.”

His breath hitched and he clutched the booties. Blue, because they were so sure it was going to be a boy. Gillian had cried and apologized, but it wasn’t her fault. And it wasn’t Amy’s fault. Rodney knew where to place the blame, and his shoulders bowed under the weight of it.

John leaned forward. “Is Amy…?”

“Gillian said she lost a lot of blood, but she’ll be okay.”

“I don’t understand. We were past the first trimester.” John sounded so baffled, so honestly confused, that it made Rodney’s chest ache.

Everyone said once you got past the first trimester it was smooth sailing. They’d told all their friends, their family. Started fixing up the spare room into a nursery, keeping everything neutral until they knew for sure if the baby was a boy or a girl. They’d been arguing about names, because Rodney wanted to name the baby after John and John didn’t want the kid to be a Junior. Lily wanted to name the baby Olaf if it was a boy and Princess Leia if it was a girl.

They’d had thirteen weeks to make plans, and imagine how their lives would change once Lily had a little brother or sister. At thirteen weeks the baby was approximately the size of a peach, so small, but the impact on their little family had been enormous.

“I’m sorry,” Rodney whispered, and he couldn’t hold the tears back anymore. “This is all my fault.”

“What?” John lifted Rodney’s chin, forced eye contact. John’s own eyes were gleaming and the scars on his face stood out in relief even despite the dim lighting. “This isn’t anyone’s fault, Rodney.”

“It was probably a chrom…chromosome issue,” Rodney explained dully. “I looked it up. Most second trimester mis…miscarriages are. So it was me.”

Amy hadn’t had a single problem when she was pregnant with Lily, but they’d used John’s sperm then. John had insisted on using Rodney’s this time, talking dopily of a little boy with Rodney’s blue eyes and crooked mouth. But there was something wrong with Rodney’s genes, obviously. Some defect that –

“Rodney!” John said sharply. He shook Rodney’s shoulder. “This isn’t your fault! Not yours, not Amy’s, not anyone’s.”

“Then why did this happen?” Rodney asked, and he broke down completely. “That was our baby!” 

John hauled him into a tight hug, and they held on to each other as they grieved the loss of the child they’d never get to know but already loved. 

In the morning they’d go see Amy, and she and Rodney would fervently apologize to each other and laugh through their tears. Gillian would mention having a little memorial service, a way for everyone to say goodbye. Jeannie would offer to quietly spread the word so that people didn’t ambush John and Rodney with baby questions. And Lily would nod solemnly, and then put together a shoebox full of things for her baby sibling to take to Heaven.

But until then, John and Rodney clung to each other and wondered how they’d ever fill the empty space where their baby was supposed to be.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** Thanks to [darkmoore](http://archiveofourown.org/users/darkmoore/pseuds/darkmoore) for helping me dig deeper for the emotions here.


End file.
